


Purple

by hotchoco195



Series: Spectrum [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Assassins In Love, F/M, Feels, Friendship/Love, History, Training vs emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotchoco195/pseuds/hotchoco195
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was taught to understand love but not feel it. She could use it against her targets in seventeen different ways, but the only love in Natasha’s heart was for the mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple

 

Her whole life Natasha never needed anybody but herself. Everyone was dispensable – the mentors she respected and the girls she trained beside. She had neither family nor friends, and she didn’t miss them.

She was taught to understand love but not feel it. She could use it against her targets in seventeen different ways, but the only love in Natasha’s heart was for the mission.

It made her stronger, more determined than the others. She became a scalpel at the disposal of her handlers, keen and focused and cutting. She quickly rose up the ranks and was entrusted with the hardest tasks, the most inhumane or important. Tasha didn’t need the praise or the recognition, but she needed the challenge, and for a while she was happy.

As she got older she started to look at her targets harder. She started to question her orders – not out of any compassion, but because strategically they didn’t all make sense. She wondered why she was being sent for the people she was; she wanted to know the grand scheme, the overall picture. She peeked and pried and edged her way around things, quietly gathering information to herself for a rainy day.

 

She was always hunted, of course, as anyone of her talent would be. Some wanted her for themselves, some wanted her dead, but none of them posed more than a temporary inconvenience.

She was in the most expensive suite at a hotel in Monte Carlo when it stopped being a game.

“Just do it.” She said quietly, not even turning her head.

The man holding the bow and arrow hesitated. “What? Why?”

“You have the advantage. Take it.”

He was too far away; for once she was incredibly unarmed in her gauzy hotel robe. There were twenty-eight different items in the hotel room she could have used to kill him, but they were all out of easy reach and she knew it would only take half a second for that arrow to pierce her neck. She might be able to charm him, to use her looks and her gender and put him off guard, but he wasn’t some hired bodyguard or paid triggerman. He was in the trade and those men never put pleasure before business. He’d won and she didn’t begrudge it to him.

Hawkeye didn’t lower the bow. “You’re ready to die?”

“No, but everyone does eventually. In our line of work I’m surprised it’s taken this long.”

“I’m not. I know who you are. I’ve been tracking you six months and this is the first chance I’ve had at a clear shot.”

“Then you should take it. I’m sure your boss is waiting for results.”

“Maybe you’re worth more to him than he realises – alive.”

She raised a brow. “What?”

He hits her with the arrow and the taser tip knocks her out instantly.

 

She wakes up in her own shirt and pants, hands and legs zip-tied to a chair that’s bolted to the floor. They’re in a van, the movement slightly jostling. He squats in front of her, watching curiously.

“You’re going to get in all sorts of trouble now.” She says, no malice intended.

“Am I? Seems like I haven’t been out of trouble since I was born. A little more won’t make a difference.”

She thinks he wants her, that he did choose pleasure after all. But he never touches her, just asks questions and changes the subject when she won’t answer.

He confuses her. She can’t tell what he wants. A dozen different scenarios flash through her head but none of them seem to fit.

 “What do you want with me?”

“I don’t want to have to kill you. Seems like a waste.”

“You’ll have to eventually.”

“I hope not.”

He’s American, but not from an agency she recognises. His methods are just a little too atypical, his manner too relaxed. He knows she’s dangerous and he’s careful, nothing but competent, yet every few seconds he was rambling off on some new topic in an attempt to draw her in.

“You’re very strange.”

“Not really.” he shrugs.

He takes her to a safe house somewhere near Tripoli, and there by some magic he reaches into her head and her heart and reminds her she is more than just Black Widow, she is still Natasha.

 

She never tells anyone how Clint did it, and he doesn’t either. She supposes if people actually knew they’d both lose some respect. That’s not why she keeps it to herself though: it’s too personal, too private, too raw to explain. Natasha’s dealt with it to a point where it can’t make her vulnerable, but she won’t go back there for other people’s curiosity.

At first there’s a lot of talk that they’re lovers. She corrects that easily enough, doesn’t even have to break bones to get the message across. It seems her name carries even more weight amongst her former enemies than she’d thought. The rumours wouldn’t have bothered her, but she can’t stand the way Clint gets offended on her behalf.

They work together a lot, once SHIELD trusts her enough to let her work. Maybe he’s their safety net, expecting that if she went rogue he’d pull her back in again. Maybe he is. He does regularly remind her to stop being so much about the mission and try to have a little fun, and it makes it easier when she wakes up in the night from dreams about the Motherland and endless entries in a ledger.

 

The Avengers Initiative is a headache she doesn’t want. Natasha can deal with volatile personalities, but she can’t stop them pissing each other off all the time. Clint doesn’t help, antagonising Stark and Banner and basically anyone he can.

“Could you for once remember you’re an agent and act like it?” she scolds him.

“Can you loosen up and see not every situation has to be dire?”

And somehow he’s right. The relaxed approach is the only one that works with their ragtag team, and Natasha resigns herself to movie nights in Avengers Tower and post-battle ice cream, and it’s not always bad.

The more laidback she becomes, the easier it is to get close to people. She wants to know her team mates for her own benefit, obviously, but she starts to be interested for more than that. She cares about Tony and his daddy issues; she cares about Steve and his lost love. Natasha begins to build a sort of family around herself, and it’s scary and it’s stupid but it makes her happy.

She spends the majority of her time with Clint. Everyone throws them together anyway, since they’re ‘the agents’. They’ve known each other the longest and they just tend to get paired up for things, which is fine since they work together well. They’re sprawled over each other on the couch one day reading when Clint turns his head.

“Have you ever been in love, Nat?”

“No.”

“Do you think you’re ready for it yet?”

She doesn’t move. “Do you know why they call me the Black Widow?”

“Yeah.”

“Then how can you ask that?”

“Sorry.”

She doesn’t say it’s fine, but they both know it will be.

He stands. “Let me know when you are, okay?”

It’s the first time she can remember being genuinely speechless.

 

If she thought about anyone that way, it might be Clint. He’s funny and reliable and strong, with a good heart and a sharp eye. He gets her; she gets him. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to feel something more for him, but she’s not ready yet.

She’s not ready for a long time, as long as the training that made her the way she is and then half again. And it’s not some close call in the field that does it, or age, or seeing Barton with someone else. It’s when they’re still sitting sprawled over each other on the couch and Natasha stops being afraid to put a new name on it. She knows nothing will change.

“Clint?”

“Yeah Tash?”

“I think it’s okay now.”

Her whole life Natasha never _needed_ anybody but herself. She was taught to understand love but not feel it. She throws that off with all the other useless lessons.


End file.
